Rusty barn tin on the interior ceilings or wall, unfinished ceilings with exposed framing, cabinets that look like a painter started sanding in order to apply a new coat of paint and walked away, exposed sliding barn door hardware inside the home with simple hand-crafted doors, old school light fixtures, and much more.

We are seeing exterior architectural elements and finishes moving inside, rustic, distressed, and elements used formerly found in older country style well "used" homes and buildings.

Can your painter stain the cabinets, paint over the stain and sand some of the paint off to reveal the stain beneath? Can he do a "crackled" finish that looks like the paint is pealing off? Can we use lanterns as vanity lights? As a builder, these and other questions are being asked by some clients.

If it done right, I like the unpretentious, comfortable and carefree style. As a pro member of the houzz community www.houzz.com I performed a search for a client looking for these modern rustic elements, and created an "Ideabook" that only scratches the surface of this popular movement. The Ideabook is shared in houzz community, and here at this link: Brothers Custom Works - Ideabook - Modern Rustic.

John and Bev (Luther), owners of Brothers Custom Works, hosted their 5th - pre-sold custom home Open House the weekend of February 9th and 10th. We were pleased with the turn out, and met lots of nice people. We appreciated all of the compliments on our work, and truly look forward to follow-up with those who visited our project, and those interested in the services offered by our company.

For those who attended, we hope you enjoyed your visit. We are always looking to improve our business and community relationships. We welcome comments, general critique of the home, and impressions of the overall experience in this Open House blog. We will also be sending out a thank you email, and following up in more detail with those who submitted inquiries regarding our services.

For Bev and I, the Open House experience is always exciting and fun. Being a family owned business, our 7 year old daughter (Mary) was present most of the day Sunday. Without coaching or intentions on our part, she eagerly watched for new arrivals, greeted them at the door with a business card and descriptive flyer of the home, and made efforts to act as self-appointed tour guide for several families (with mom, dad or one of our team being close by).

Congratulations to Linda Miculka, winner of the drawing for a $50 Visa gift card.

Author

John and Bev Luther, owners of Brothers Custom Works enjoy meeting and helping people, and learning about how to improve their service to the community related to their business. We hope this blog will help in these areas, and will appreciate the comments and participation of others.